ANC reviews policy as poverty gap widens

from The Mail and Guardian

Mariette le Roux | Cape Town, South Africa

The African National Congress (ANC) is set to confront growing disquiet about the gap between rich and poor at a policy conference this week amid the biggest bout of worker unrest since apartheid.

With the ANC due to elect a new leader at the end of the year, the four-day meeting in Midrand, near Johannesburg, will be partly seen as a test of strength between left-wing and pro-business elements.

Topping the agenda will be debates on social and economic transformation and on the role of organised labour, while some of the most heated discussion is expected to revolve around the thorny issue of land ownership.

While this week's conference cannot set policy, its recommendations will be submitted for approval to the ANC national congress in December when delegates elect a new party leader in succession to President Thabo Mbeki.

Even Mbeki, while trumpeting his government's impressive economic record, has acknowledged more needs to be done to address the plight of the working class who form the bedrock of the party.

In his latest ANC weekly newsletter, Mbeki, sometimes slated as too business-friendly, agreed the party's central task was to "liberate our people from the scourge of poverty".

Joel Netshitenzhe, head of policy in the Presidency, expanded on the theme at a recent briefing when he conceded "inequality in society is worsening" even if the economy is booming.

"Whilst ... the income of the poorest has been improving, it has not been improving at the same pace as income of the richest in the population," he said.

After 13 years in government, the conference offers the party an opportunity to reassess its multiple identities of political liberator, social development conduit and business-friendly pursuer of investor stability in Africa's economic powerhouse.

Jacob Zuma, the ANC's deputy leader who has his eye on the top job, said the challenge is to strike a balance between encouraging growth and addressing "evidence of a widening gap between rich and poor".

"If the economic situation is not stable, that can inevitably affect political stability," he told journalists.

Formed in 1912, the ANC spearheaded the decades-long political and military charge against white rule.

It still describes itself as a liberation movement -- the struggle following the downfall of the apartheid system under white minority rule being against poverty and inequality.

Yet it is judged harshly by its alliance partners, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) and the South African Communist Party, for adopting policies that have fostered a new business elite at the expense of broad social uplifting.

Hundreds of thousands of public servants have been striking since June 1 against poor pay, even as the country enjoys its longest-ever economic expansion.

Johannesburg-based Centre for Policy Studies research manager Omano Edigheji said the ANC seemed torn between its different constituencies.

"In a country like South Africa, where there is a constitutional provision for social justice, it is morally reprehensible if the promotion of equity is not prioritised in public policy," he stated in a review of the conference agenda.

Vast swathes of South Africa's 47-million citizens, 80% of whom are black, are still poor.

On the other side of the spectrum is a burgeoning black elite benefiting from empowerment deals criticised for leaving the masses on the sideline.

The ruling party boasts that unemployment levels, unofficially as high as 40%, have begun to decline while poverty is on the decrease.

But a draft ANC policy document concedes that joblessness remains "worryingly high", with at least one-third of the population living in poverty.

"The ownership and control of wealth and income, the poverty trap, access to opportunity and so on are defined ... as under apartheid, on the basis of race and gender," it adds.